Five speeches that have defined American presidencies

It’s a big night in the nation’s capital tonight — and in many of your homes.

No, not the Saints-Packers game. President Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech to a joint session of Congress outlining his agenda to create jobs.

With the president’s job approval ratings at an all-time low and more than four in five Americans say the country is heading in the wrong direction, tonight could be a pivotal moment in the Obama presidency. That made me think back to some other pivotal speeches that defined recent American presidencies over the past century. Five memorable examples:

George W. Bush’s speech to Congress, Sept. 20, 2001

Nine days after the al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and Washington, D.C., the first-year president delivered a powerful address to Congress explaining the terrorist threat and showing his steely resolve to deal with it. It may have been the finest speech of his presidency and contributed to his record-high approval ratings in the fall of 2001.

Jimmy Carter’s 1979 “malaise” speech

Carter, sinking in popularity among the second gas crisis of the decade, delivered an uninspired speech on energy policy that many people thought blamed Americans for the problems they faced. Although he never uttered the word “malaise,” the speech earned that moniker and fed the public’s angry mood that resulted in Ronald Reagan’s big win a year later.

Bill Clinton’s 1995 Oklahoma City speech

The Republicans had won a landslide in the 1994 midterm elections and Clinton had denied that he was “irrelevant” in Newt Gingrich-dominated Washington. His speech following the terrorist attack in Oklahoma City instantly changed public perceptions of the embattled president. Almost immediately, Clinton’s standing among independent voters shot up. He was on his way to comfortable re-election, something that would have been unimaginable when Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building.

Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy’s inaugural addresses

It’s rare when a president’s first speech in office defines a presidency. But it was the case for both Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. At the lowest ebb of the Great Depression, FDR told fearful Americans that they had “nothing to fear — (pause) — but fear itself.” Kennedy, whose youth and inexperience made many Americans nervous about his ability to serve as commander-in-chief, won over the hearts of the vast majority of Americans when he asked Americans to ask “not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Kennedy’s approval rating never dipped below 60 percent and he had the highest favorable ratings of any president in the history of public opinion polling. Roosevelt, who had won an electoral landslide, used the momentum from his inaugural address to ramrod an unprecedented volume of legislation through Congress in the first hundred days of his presidency.